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Bennett Haselton writes: Vimeo and Youtube are pressured to remove a dark, fan-made "Power Rangers"
short film; Vimeo capitulated, while Youtube has so far left it up. I'm generally
against the overreach of copyright law, but in this case, how could anyone argue
the short film doesn't violate the rights of the franchise creator? And should
Vimeo and Youtube clarify their policies on the unauthorized use of copyrighted characters? Read on for the rest.

If we survive as a society, in 500 years, our technology will be so advanced there will be systems we cannot even conceive of that capable of analyzing pretty much any data or bytecode you throw at it. Documentation or support systems will most likely serve a more historical than practical purpose.

Bennett Haselton writes: They would never admit it, but your high school admins would probably breathe a sigh of relief
if all of their sexting-mad students would go ahead and install Snapchat so that
evidence of (sometimes) illegal sexting would disappear into the ether. They can't recommend
that you do this, because it would sound like an implicit endorsement, just like they can't
recommend designated drivers for teen drinking parties -- but it's a good bet they would
be grateful.
Read on for the rest.

Bennett Haselton writes Sidecar is a little-known alternative to Lyft and Uber, deployed in only ten cities so far,
which lets drivers set their own prices to undercut other ride-sharing services.
Given that most amateur drivers would be willing to give someone a ride for far
less than the rider would be willing to pay, why didn't the flex-pricing option take off? Keep reading to see what Bennet has to say.

Bennett Haselton writes The corruption of the #Ferguson and #Gamergate hashtags demonstrates how vulnerable
the hashtag system is to being swamped by an "angry mob".
An alternative algorithm could be created that would allow users to post tweets
and browse the ones that had been rated "thoughtful" by other users participating
in the same discussion. This would still allow anyone to contribute, even average users
lacking a large follower base, while keeping the most stupid and offensive tweets out of most
people's feeds. Keep reading to see what Bennett has to say.

Bennett Haselton writes: My last article garnered some objections from readers saying that the sample sizes were too
small to draw meaningful conclusions. (36 out of 47 survey-takers, or 77%, said that a picture
of a black woman breast-feeding was inappropriate; while in a different group,
38 out of 54 survey-takers, or 70%, said
that a picture of a white woman breast-feeding was inappropriate in the same context.)
My conclusion was that, even on the basis of a relatively small sample, the evidence was
strongly against a "huge" gap in the rates at which the surveyed population would consider
the two pictures to be inappropriate. I stand by that, but it's worth presenting
the math to support that conclusion, because I think the surveys are valuable tools when
you understand what you can and cannot demonstrate with a small sample. (Basically,
a small sample can present only weak evidence as to what the population average is,
but you can confidently demonstrate what it is not.)
Keep reading to see what Bennett has to say.

The site just wasn't ready for mass adoption. There's a great idea behind it, but as of last week, it was just so damn unusable. I'm tempted to think that their marketing blitz was premature. But perhaps the goal wasn't to show off the site so much as to get just enough attention to turn the heads of investors. If so, maybe it worked. They've gained some cash flow while also validating the idea that there IS a desire for what they are building.

Now, they can use some of this funding to actually make the UI usable and add in those missing features. Maybe when their next media campaign comes around, there will be a site worth applauding. We can only hope.

Good for them. I'll keep my account active and hope it turns into a site

I live in Worcester, and have been a Charter customer for five years. When their Internet connection is working it's great. It's fast, and I have no complaint.

This isn't a "bash Charter" thread, so I won't go into the details, but lets just say that the service drops much more than I can sometimes stand. When it does that , there's no telling when it will come back. The reliability of my Internet connection and their poor customer service would have prompted me to drop them by now if I could. I had Comcast before.. they've got their pros and cons too, but I wish I could at least have a choice to leave this monopoly.

Now, this might border on gossip, but I did get chatty with a Charter service tech who visited my home. I was venting to him and cursing the monopoly Charter has in the area. He told me that Charter had a deal with the City where all schools would get free service in exchange for an exclusivity deal. So no Comcast, no FIOS. I cannot verify this, but it is an interesting anecdote given what's going on.

Come on. You're kidding yourself. Don't tell me that Apple did it this way because it was easier on their developers. iTunes has countless ways of selling, promoting, and giving away music. This company certainly has the resources to make iTunes behave exactly how they want it to. This was a very deliberate move aimed at putting this album on your device.